Are You Pursuing A Pipedream?

High school and college graduation speeches often revolve around some variant of the advice to “Follow your passion.” The theme has enduring popularity because it sounds so liberating and affirming, and also because it is pretty much guaranteed to meet with audience approval. It is a safe way to sound daring.

Unfortunately, the follow-your-passion plea may actually be poor advice, feeding into some destructive tendencies that new graduates should be trying to overcome.

Inexperience. Whose passion is it? The passion of a new high school graduate hopefully will change with age, experience, and maturity. Why would we want to encourage young people to fixate on childhooddreams that are likely to be unrealistic and, by definition, juvenile? Many new graduates have very restricted life experiences, so what career choices can they imagine? Becoming fashion models? Designing video games? Playing in a rock band? Parlaying their enjoyment of student plays into a career in theater or film?

Self-indulgence. The follow-your-passion message is self-centered— just the wrong message to beam to a population that already tends to be too self-indulgent. The follow-your-passion message is that what matters is your own satisfaction, not serving the needs of the community.

Cluelessness. Many young people don’t know what their passion is. Yet they believe they are selling out if they choose paths that aren’t their passion. So they wander through college and post-college unwilling to commit, waiting for the moment when their passion will become clear to them. Some of them wait a long time and never have that epiphany. They spend a lost decade in a twilight state, keeping their options open and rejecting one career path after another because they find some reason to doubt that it is their passion.

Financial irresponsibility. Society doesn’t offer large rewards for self-indulgence. I suspect that the more high-paying jobs are ones for doing work that benefits others, not jobs that cater to narcissistic interests. A healthy society depends on citizens who cooperate, sacrifice and try to help each other out. It depends on professions such as biomedical engineers, clinical nurse specialists, software architects, reservoir engineers, database administrators, information assurance analysts, accountants, occupational therapists, optometrists, and biochemists. We may enjoy the arts but we really don’t need an endless supply of artists, actors and dancers — we appear well-stocked in these specialty areas.

Magical thinking. Let’s not ignore the importance of luck. The graduation speakers encouraging young audiences to find their own path tend to be intelligent, persistent, and lucky. Their less fortunate counterparts rarely get invited to give motivational speeches. I am referring to those whose path ran into a brick wall and who persisted anyway because they didn’t want to waste the time and energy they’d already expended. They found their passion, only to get trapped by it.

Perhaps we should be offering young graduates a different type of advice: Bloom where you are planted. Learn to find ways to grow and thrive even if the conditions aren’t perfect. A friend of mine described how, late in his career, he was given an assignment typically reserved for those about to be pushed into retirement. He was disappointed — he wasn’t ready to retire, and he had hoped for additional promotions and challenges. But then he remembered his mother’s admonition to bloom where you are planted. He abandoned hopes for further advancement and plunged into his new work. Without having to worry about supervisor evaluations, he found that he could make some sweeping and necessary changes. He did an outstanding job and, to his surprise, he was promoted. But then, a few years later, he was again given a dreaded dead-end job. Same cycle of disappointment and acceptance and liberation. He again did an outstanding job. And again, an unexpected promotion.

Job and life satisfaction may depend less on finding one’s passion than on making contributions and being valued members of worthwhile organizations. Too many graduates live in the purgatory of skeptically examining each career path to gauge whether this is their ideal. They might be better off learning to bloom where they are planted.

Still, we don’t want to counsel anyone to stay stuck in a terrible situation, so even the advice to bloom where you are planted needs to be tempered. No one-liner is going to fit all situations. Job/career satisfaction will also depend on our intellectual and emotional strengths. It will depend on how our temperament fits the nature of the work, as well as on our relationships with our bosses and co-workers. Career choices aren’t simple, which is why they shouldn’t be guided by simplistic slogans.

"Work all your life in a series of jobs that don't inspire you and look back when you're fifty wondering where your dreams went";

"Forget passion, or doing what you want, go for the throat: money power influence. Grab it and devil take the hindmost."

"Most of you will never amount to anything. Get used to it. Be grateful you've got this far, this is the high point of your life. From here on in you are a cog in the money machine and there are two choices: like it or lump it"

Nobody wants a speaker to tell them unpalatable truths at their graduation, do they?

It is lovely hearing yet another science guy rain on everyone else's parade, but there's a few problems with it:

I once knew a Biology graduate whose first job was preparing and washing test tubes at £13,000 a year. She hated it. I mentioned that I had heard Science was supposed to be where all the jobs and the money were at, but she groaned 'No!'. Apparently that only applies to Physics, which needs you to be a Maths whizz.

What do you do if you're just not a Maths whizz?

I have also met the Dr of Genetics who was working as an office administrator (and had been struggling with depression); the Dr of Computational Biology who was not serving Science but a small IT department; then there was the Maths grad who was a part time admin; the chemistry grad who loved Science so much he became a landlord; the chemistry undergrad whose parents gave him advice about the promise of a career in science, but who dropped out after failing his first year twice because he was unsuited to it. I also knew someone who was top in every subject at school, but who chose to become a tree surgeon. He also hated it, and the job was slowly disabling him while brutalising his outlook on life.

Goading everyone with the advice to do something practical, but then butting out at the last minute behind the cloak of "it's too complicated for a one liner" is another form of safely sounding daring. (Even if couched in a disclaimer, it is a risk to focus on pure practicality as it could suit you to doing something you hate). During secondary school, what would really help the kids is:

1. telling them how many openings there are in each industry and job type in a year,

2. telling them how many other people are likely to apply for the same job,

3. telling them how good they have to be at certain skills to get the job and thrive,

4. telling them just how hard it is to get, do, and hold onto,

5. telling them what they can do if that doesn't work out, and encouraging them to have a plan D if necessary (in case of recession),

6. giving them work experience in a whole range of areas so they know what they can and can't stand,

7. doing as much as possible to undermine nepotism, old boys clubs, class privilege, sexism, heterosexism, racism, ageism, and to promote meritocratic social mobility.

At the start of secondary school, I had every belief that I would enter an office or a laboratory, do standard office/lab work, and live happily as an office/lab guy. Then I did a week's work experience in beaurocratic department. I was so horrified and despairing that people could waste their whole lives doing something so meaningless after I'd been taught about Science, Art, English etc. that I resolved to do something meaningful.

In other words - sure don't tell them to follow a dream (e.g. be an astronaut) or just do something practical. Instead tell them to make a meaningful contribution. That involves getting them to decide what is meaningful for them, in combination with showing them how they can serve.

And we ought to be showing them how to do that with the Arts, and Philosophy. ;)

Well. Certainly there is a balance to all this and being realistic is crucial.

On the other hand, I cannot disagree with you more when you equate following your passions with self indulgence. That in fact, sounds like a very immature definition to me. What if my passion is is horses. I spend all my time with horses. Then I decide I want to share my passion with handicap kids so I start an organization that matches handicap kids with horses they can ride. Does that sound self indulgent. After all. I selfishly followed my passion.

Not sure I follow the harshness of this article. Again, balance and mentoring are the key for any gong person.